Hi there

Is it possible to 'lock' images on a website to stop people nicking your pictures? I'm guessing you'd have to stop someone being able to right click on the image and choosing 'save target as'.

Any ideas?

Also, is it possible to 'lock' your code so that if someone right clicks on a website and chooses 'view source' they cannot see the code?

Thanks in advance

Lucy

Nope. No way.

You can try to make it harder for people to steal them, but not impossible. The browser will need to access the image on your server to display it in the browser. When it has downloaded the image, it will usually save a local copy of it in your cache folder. So, even if you block access to the image in the page, it's easy to retrieve it from the local disk. The same applies to code like JavaScript / HTML / DHTML.

Using JavaScript to block right-clicking is IMO the best way to drive away users from your site. (Which may help in protecting your content ;) )It's user unfriendly (you take away the possibility to use Back, Select All, Refresh and other useful features from the context menu) and it also doesn't work. It's pretty easy to temporarily disable JavaScript so you can access the page's source.

If you want to block access to your images, don't put them on-line. Alternatively, you can take a look at protected PDF's. But even then, users can simply take a screen shot of your image and use that.

The best way to protect your intellectual property is to make it copy-right protected. This way, visitors can steal your stuff but are not allowed to use it.

Cheers,

Imar

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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Thanks for the information Imar - you've been a great help.

Regards

Lucy

Hi Imar, I had almost the same question.... I need to have a couple of pics copyrighted as they will actually be used for business and I need to post them on a site (that is not mine and I want to make sure the people that visit know who made them) so my question is: when you say to copy-right protect them do u mean to just place a © sign on them? Or is there another way to copyright them? If you check my page under CD project you will see what I need to © ... Thanks PS: Uselss to ask the webmaster of the other page to link them back to mine as he's not a professional and he doesn't understand what I am asking to him... I should then write him the HTML page but that's his job (if you understand what I mean)

I was actually referring to legal copyrights. I am not a legal expert, but I think you can protect your copyright by law by somehow registering yourself as the legal owner of the material.

Alternatively, you can put a layer of copyright text on the image. This is a technique I have used a couple of times in Web sites where you can buy images on-line. The large preview image has a copyright text on top of the image, which basically cripples the images so bad it can no longer be used on a site, or for print directly, while you can still allow your users to preview the image....

Cheers,

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.